OTTOMAN PIOUS FOUNDATIONS in WESTERN BULGARIA Berkofça, Cum’A-I Bâlâ, Dupnica Berkovitsa Lies at 400 M

Prof. Dr. Machiel KIEL* OTTOMAN PIOUS FOUNDATIONS IN WESTERN BULGARIA Berkofça, Cum’a-i Bâlâ, Dupnica Berkovitsa lies at 400 m. above sea level in a plain at the foot of the heavily wooded Čiprovska- and Berkovica Planina, the western-most end of the Balkan Mountains which here runs in north-south direction. Hundred meters higher up are the ruins of a sizeable Roman and late-Antique castle. Berkofça, Berkòvica in Bulgarian, is a minor town in North-Western Bulgaria, just below the Pet- ro Han Pass (1400 m.), on the historical road between Sofia and Vidin. In Ottoman times (1395- 1878), from the 15th century to the reforms of the Tanzimat it was the centre of a Kaza in the sandjak Sofia (Paşa Livâsı) and a small Islamic town, one of the north-western-most outposts of Islam in Bulgaria. In the 17th and 18th century it gradually rose to an important centre of crafts. It was the focal point of the North-Western Bulgarian mining district of Çiprovçe (Čiprovets). Berkovitsa lies at 400 m. above sea level in a plain at the foot of the heavily wooded Čiprovska- and Berkovica Planina, the western-most end of the Balkan Mountains which here runs in north- south direction. Hundred meters higher up are the ruins of a sizeable Roman and late-Antique castle.1 Berkovitsa is not known from the Bulgarian Middle Ages. Until the 1970s Bulgarian historiog- raphy held it for an Ottoman foundation of the 17th century. Archaeological excavations in the ruins of the castle discovered the foundations of two large Early-Christian basilicas from the Vth century, indicating that at least until the invasions of the Slavs, by 600 A.D. there must have been a settlement of considerable importance. It is probable, but not proved by any source, that the castle was in use again in the 11-14th century, after which it was taken by the Ottomans in about 1395, who settled a group of Muslim Turks below the now deserted castle, the nucleous * Netherlands İnstitute in Turkey Balkanlarda Osmanlı Vakıfları ve Eserleri Uluslararası Sempozyumu / 115 of a new Muslim settlement. In 1395 the important town of Vidin on the Danube was taken by the Ottomans and immediately made centre of a large Sandjak. From 1395 onward the road from Sofia (Ottoman since 1386) to Vidin passes Berkofça. The territory to the west of the north- south running Balkan Chain belonged from 1389 onward to the territories controlled by the able Serbian Despot Stefan Lazarević (d.1427). Berkovica is first mentioned in a fragmentarily preserved İcmal Defter (Sofia, OAK 52/59), con- taining later notes. The oldest of these notes is from the middle of May 1447. This makes it highly probable that the defter belonged to the series ordered by Sultan Mehmed II during his short first rule (1445/46), of whom a number of other fragments are known. The Sofia fragment (38 folia) mentions “Berkoviçe” as centre of a Kadılık but has nothing about population, garrison or a castle. The “1446 fragment” mentions nine villages belonging to the Kaza of Berkovitsa, three of them rather big. Eight of the nine villages still exist today. A fragment of about a decade later (Sofia, VD 110/10) mentions two other large villages, Gorna- with 123 and Dolna Varanica with 269 households. From Dolna Varanica the total tax value of the tithe on cereals and fruits is given, divided by the number of households it gives 120 Akçe per households, which is an amount often found at well-situated villages. The register fragment also indicates that the village produced a total of 2.000 barrels (medre) of grape must (green wine). The same list also contains the names of four mezra’as (either deserted villages, or plots of uninhabited arable land) that later developed into villages. Both Gorna- and Dolna Varanica and the four mezra’s also still exist today, making the total of 15 settlements about which there is some early information The next-oldest information about Berkovitsa and its Kaza is the completely preserved mufassal defter T.D. 130 from 1524, which basic content was reproduced in the surveyable Muhasebe Defter T.D. 370 from 1530. Besides the little town of “Berkofça” it mentions (p.237) as urban settlement the mining town of “Çiprofçe -Čiprovets in Bulgarian – (p.237), and no less than 112 villages. Some of these villages were empty and deserted, others newly founded and not in the previous register. With 422 Christian households and two of Muslims the greatest settlement of the kaza was by far and wide the town of Çiprovçe (Čiprovets). In the same year the town of Berkofçe itself (p. 235) had 169 Muslim households, and 24 households of Christians. The Mus- lim part of the population had a privileged status, were freed from paying tith (öşr) and avâriz taxes and had this status “since the time of “the Sultans of old” (selâtin-i maziye). This vague term includes at least Selim I (1512-1520) and Bayezid II (1481-1512), most probably Mehmed II (1451-1481), and possibly Murad II (1421-1451) in whose time the terrible Crusade of Varna (1444) had taken place. The status points to a government-planned resettlement of Turkish speaking Muslims in a district which almost entirely was inhabited by Christians. The total number of the households in the two little towns and the 112 villages of the Kaza was 3.807 households, of whom 229 (or 6%) was Muslim. It is remarkable to see that almost half of the Christian households had a privileged status, largely the inhabitants of the mining villages in the northern half of the Kaza. In the mountainous parts of the Kaza Berkofça groups of Yürüks lived permanently. The Celep-Keşan Defter of 1576, kept in the Sofia National Library mentions 14 Yürüks as celep/sheep-drover. In the town itself 27 men were inscribed as celeps, two of them being Bulgarians. Being responsable for driving large herds of sheep to Istanbul celep was a function involving large financial investment. Often it was also a source of richness, allowing the celeps to live in grand style. 116 / Balkanlarda Osmanlı Vakıfları ve Eserleri Uluslararası Sempozyumu The latest tahrir of the Sandjak Sofya, T.K.G.M. no 95 in Ankara, from 1595, shows that Berkofça had grown slowly to 236 households of whom 212 were Muslim, living in five different mahalles, 14 households of Christians and a community of 10 households of gypsies. It can be seen that only 4% of the Muslims were of local convert origin. In the 17th century Berkofça developed into a real town, known for its high quality copper- work, leatherwork and textiles. In the 18th century timber industry also became important. Katip Çelebi in his Cihan-nüma mentions Berkofça as seat of a Kadılık and a centre of a mining district. In 1688, during the great war against the Christian coalition (Holy League) the Kaza of Berkofça suffered terribly during the Habsburg-instigated uprising of the Catholic mining villages of Čiprovets and the harsh Ottoman suppression of it. In the 18th century Berkofça is said to have had 15.000 inhabitants, which is certainly too high. In the year 1800, during the very troubled period of the Kărdžali robber gangs - known as dağlı isiyanları in Turkish - the town was almost completely burnt down, but revived rather quickly. In the course of time the Bulgarian part of the town’s population slowly gained in strenght. In 1830 the Bulgarian community founded a school in Berkofça, in 1843 the large church of the Holy Vir- gin was build folllowed 1871 by the church of St. Nicolas, having an exquisitely carved wooden iconostasis, work of the famous wood carvers of Samokov (Stojkov-Vasiliev 1958). Between 1850 and 1853 the monumental church of the Lopušanski Monastery in the environs of the town was build. By the mid-19th century the Bulgarian element gained the majority of the town’s population. In the prosperous 19th century a Jewish community came into being, soon having its synagogue. After the Crimean war (1852/56) the Ottomans settled Tatar refugies from the Crimea (Kırım) in the Kaza of Berkofçe, shortly afterwards followed by about 320 families of Çerkes refugies from the Russian occupied Kaukasus. They were settled in four new villages (İhsaniye, Rüşdiye, Feyz-i Hüda and Ahmediye) and provided with a mosque and a school by the State. An Ottoman register written in 1255/1839/40) gives an overview of all the vakfs of the Kaza of Berkovitsa, 21 in all, with the names of the buildings and their founders (BOA, EV. 11057, fol. 7b-8a). It mentions 9 mosques in the town, as well as 3 mesdjids and 4 mekteps. As all these buildings were destroyed after 1878 this list is the last witness of the Ottoman architectural production in this area. Despite the importance of this list it was never published. It was the veteran scholar Todor Zlatev who in 1955 published a plan and a photograph of the Cam’i-i Kebir of Berkofçe, accompanied by a domed hamam and a mektep, thus “the Ottoman Trinity” of mosque, bath and school, constituting the nucleous of the Ottoman town. (For the 1839 list see below). In the 1870s the entire Kaza of Berkofça contained - including the eastern district with the emerging town of Golyama Kutlovica, (now: Montana), 8.071 households of whom 2.819, or 35% was Muslim. An analysis of Ottoman property document of 92 villages of the kaza of Berkofça shows that big Muslim landownership of more than 500 dönüm accounted for only two percent of the entire arable land.

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